After the death of Drusus, to whose memory a beautiful triumphal arch was erected, Tiberius was sent against the Germans, and after successful warfare, at the age of forty, obtained the permission of Augustus to retire to Rhodes, in order to improve his mind by the study of philosophy, or, as it is supposed by many historians, from jealousy of Caius and Lucius Cæsar, the children of Julia and Agrippa—those young princes to whom the throne of the world was apparently destined. At Rhodes, Tiberius, now the ablest man in the empire, for both Agrippa and Mæcenas were dead, lived in simple retirement for seven years. But the levities of Julia, to which Augustus could not be blind, compelled him to banish her—his only daughter—to the Campanian coast, where she died neglected and impoverished. The emperor was so indignant in view [pg 571] of her disgraceful conduct, that he excluded her from any inheritance. The premature death of her sons nearly broke the heart of their grandfather, bereft of the wise councils and pleasant society of his great ministers, and bending under the weight of the vast empire which he, as the heir of Cæsar, had received. The loss of his grandsons compelled the emperor to provide for his succession, and he turned his eyes to Tiberius, his step-son, who was then at Rhodes. He adopted him as his successor, and invested him with the tribunitian power. But, while he selected him as his heir, he also required him to adopt Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus.
Domitius Ahenobardus.
Another great man now appeared upon the stage, L. Domitius Ahenobardus, the son-in-law of Octavia and Antony, who was intrusted with the war against the Germanic tribes, and who was the first Roman general to cross the Elbe. He was the grandfather of Nero. But Tiberius was sent to supersede him, and following the plan of his brother Drusus, he sent a flotilla down the Rhine, with orders to ascend the Elbe, and meet his army at an appointed rendezvous, which was then regarded as a great military feat, in the face of such foes as the future conquerors of Rome. After this Tiberius was occupied in reconquering the wide region between the Adriatic and the Danube, known as Illyricum, which occupied him three years, A.D. 7-9. In this war he was assisted by his nephew and adopted son, Germanicus, whose brilliant career revived the hope which had centred in Drusus.
Disaster of Varus.
Meanwhile Augustus, wearied with the cares of State, provoked by the scandals which his daughter occasioned, and irritated by plots against his life, began to relax his attention to business, and to grow morose. It was then that he banished Ovid, whose Tristia made a greater sensation than his immortal Metamorphoses. The disaster which befell Varus with a Roman army, in the forest of Teutoburg, near the river Lippe, when thirty thousand men were cut to pieces by the Germans under Arminius (Hermann), completed [pg 572] the humiliation of Augustus, for, in this defeat, he must have foreseen the future victories of the barbarians. All ideas of extending the empire beyond the Rhine were now visionary, and that river was henceforth to remain its boundary on the north. New levies were indeed dispatched to the Rhine, and Tiberius and Germanicus led the forces. But the princes returned to Rome without effecting important results.
Death of Augustus. Character of Augustus.
Soon after, in the year A.D. 14, Augustus died in his seventy-seventh year, after a reign of forty-four years from the battle of Actium, and fifty from the triumvirate—one of the longest reigns in history, and one of the most successful. From his nineteenth year he was prominent on the stage of Roman public life. Under his auspices the empire reached the Elbe, and Egypt was added to its provinces. He planted colonies in every province, and received from the Parthians the captured standards of Crassus. His fleets navigated the Northern Ocean; his armies reduced the Pannonians and Illyrians. He added to the material glories of his capital, and sought to secure peace throughout the world. He was both munificent and magnificent, and held the reins of government with a firm hand. He was cultivated, unostentatious, and genial; but ambitious, and versed in all the arts of dissimulation and kingcraft. But he was a great monarch, and ruled with signal ability. After the battle of Actium, his wars were chiefly with the barbarians, and his greatest generals were members of the imperial family. That he could have reigned so long, in such an age, with so many enemies, is a proof of his wisdom and moderation, as well as of his good fortune. That he should have triumphed over such generals as Brutus, and Antonius, and Sextus—representing the old parties of the republic, is unquestionable evidence of transcendent ability. But his great merit was his capacity to rule, to organize, and to civilize. He is one of the best types of a sovereign ruler that the world has seen. It is nothing against him, that, in his latter years, there were popular discontents. Such generally happen at the close of all long reigns, as in the case of [pg 573] Solomon and Louis XIV. And yet, the closing years of his reign were melancholy, like those of the French monarch, in view of the extinction of literary glories, and the passing away of the great lights of the age, without the appearance of new stars to take their place. But this was not the fault of Augustus, whose intellect expanded with his fortunes, and whose magnanimity grew with his intellect—a man who comprehended his awful mission, and who discharged his trusts with dignity and self-reliance.
Tiberius Cæsar, the third of the Roman emperors, found no opposition to his elevation on the death of Augustus. He ascended the throne of the Roman world at the mature age of fifty-six, after having won great reputation both as a statesman and a general. He was probably the most capable man in the empire, and in spite of all his faults, the empire was never better administered than by him. His great misfortune and fault was the suspicion of his nature, which made him the saddest of mankind, and finally, a monster of cruelty.
Tiberius veils his power.
Like Augustus, he veiled his power as emperor by assuming the old offices of the republic. A subservient Senate and people favored the consolidation of the new despotism to which the world was now accustomed, and with power, which it cheerfully acquiesced as the best government for the times. The last remnant of popular elections was abolished, and the Comitia was transferred from the Campus Martius to the Senate, who elected the candidate proposed by the emperor.